Kings and nobles and priests ... were to him an abomination.... The want of ... benevolence made him very impatient of ... all faults which grated on his strong, shrewd nature: it left no check to his ... sarcasm. As he was not merciful, he would sometimes wound ... without ... caring how deep he thrust.... Mr. Yorke's family was the first and oldest in the district.
Viâ Yorke Hunsden of The Professor and Mr. Yorke of Shirley the reader has returned to a character who typified more than any other of Charlotte Brontë's Yorkshire-Héger portrayals the merciless, strong and shrewd-natured Taylor—Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights. But the Yorkshire element in Heathcliffe was a caricature and an exaggeration for the purposes of the "cuckoo story," resulting from the tale Montagu tells of a foundling; and the emphasis laid upon his barbarity was largely a result, too, of the consideration I mention in the chapters entitled "The Recoil," which consideration had to do with the Héger phase of Heathcliffe. The fact that evidence shows Heathcliffe to have been, like Hunsden and Rochester, a composite character drawn from a dual model—the Taylor-Héger model—traceable in origin absolutely to Charlotte Brontë's idiosyncratic estimate of two male characters who are shown to have seriously interested her, in itself sufficiently demonstrates her authorship of Wuthering Heights, and is indeed of great interest.
If reference be made to a letter written by Charlotte Brontë in 1846, the year when she offered Wuthering Heights to a publisher, it will be found she mentioned that one of the Taylors had—like Heathcliffe—suffered in the teens of years from hypochondria, "a most dreadful doom," Charlotte called it, and related she herself had endured it for a year.[51]
Having herself suffered thus, there was a temptation—at what I elsewhere call the dark season of Charlotte Brontë's inner life, at the season of the recoil—to present in her work Wuthering Heights the Yorkshire-Héger with the hypochondria of her Yorkshire model, and let his demon be the original of her Catherine Earnshaw—be herself. To this temptation Charlotte Brontë gave no opposition, much to her regret later. Herewith we have the origin of Heathcliffe's miserable hypochondria and monomania—his digging for Catherine in the grave till his spade scraped the coffin, in Wuthering Heights, Chap. XXIX., and his saying because his "preternatural horror" always haunted, but never abided with him:—
"She showed herself, ... a devil to me! And, since then ... I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal—keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed.... It racked me! I've groaned aloud.... It was a strange way of killing! not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, ... through eighteen years!" Mr. Heathcliffe paused, ... his hair wet with perspiration, ... the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject.
In the light of the foregoing, therefore, we may understand the truth of Charlotte Brontë's narration in The Professor, Chap. XXIII.:—
My nerves ... jarred ... A horror of great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly, ... I was ... a prey to hypochondria. She had been ... my guest ... before ... for a year.... I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such hours!... How she would discourse to me of her own country—the grave.... I was glad when ... I could ... sit ... freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
Both by reason of Mrs. Gaskell's suspicion that she had drawn from them in the portrayals of the heroes of her first books and by reason of the undeniable evidence of her works, we must accept the Taylors as the originals of most that was "Yorkshire" in Charlotte Brontë's Yorke Hunsden, Heathcliffe, Rochester, and Yorke, understanding the term in Currer Bell's implication of "independent," "hard," and "open-spoken." But M. Héger contributed what Charlotte Brontë calls in Chap. XXVII. of Villette, in speaking of him as M. Paul Emanuel—"that swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood," and this gave colour to the physiognomy of "the swart, sallow" Heathcliffe and Rochester.[52]
In the succeeding chapters I deal more particularly with the relation of Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights, to Rochester of Jane Eyre, and I promise my readers to present therein most important and sensational revelations.
CHAPTER X.
HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE" ONE AND THE SAME.
Without herewith further entering into the question as to the original of the morose and harsh characters who were the heroes of Charlotte Brontë's novels, I will at once show she had drawn from the same model in both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I have given in the foregoing chapter the introduction of Lockwood to Heathcliffe and that of Jane to Rochester side by side. Let us also read the following:—
| Wuthering Heights. | Jane Eyre. |
| Heathcliffe. | Rochester. |
| With a stubborn countenance ... Heathcliffe is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman; ... rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic cord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know by instinct his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally under one cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I am running on too fast; I bestow my own attributes over liberally on him. | Most people would have thought Mr. Rochester an ugly man; yet there was an unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own appearance ... that ... one inevitably shared the indifference, and even in a blind sense put faith in his confidence.... He was proud, sardonic; ... in my secret soul I knew his kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to others. He was moody, too, ... and when he looked up a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. |
Heathcliffe and Rochester are both black-avised, stubborn of countenance, negligent as to external appearance, moody, proud in carry, and morose. Charlotte Brontë tells us of one that on external judgment "most people would have thought him" possessed of a disqualification, and of the other that "some people might suspect him" of having a disqualification. And in each case a similar offset—the internal reading of the man's character—is brought forth by Charlotte Brontë as Lockwood or Jane:—"A sympathetic cord within" tells the former that Heathcliffe's reserve read as under-bred pride springs from an aversion to "manifestations of mutual kindliness"; and Jane, commenting on Rochester's being proud and sardonic, says, "In my secret heart I knew ... his kindliness to me was balanced by unjust severity to others."
I find the singular expression indicated by the "hell's light" epithets applied to Heathcliffe's eyes was an expression Charlotte Brontë had apparently noticed in the original of this character. Rochester's eyes in Jane Eyre have "strange gleams," and we are told "his eye had a tawny—nay, a bloody light in its gloom," and so forth. Indeed, Heathcliffe's eyes, which were "clouded windows of hell" with "black-fire in them," are seen in Rochester's clearly enough, and the singular "hell's light" is associated with them at considerable length, in
Jane Eyre:—
And as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful ... expression?—that opened upon a careful observer ... in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape.
The following description of Heathcliffe could be read as of Rochester, whose "olive cheek" and "deep eyes" Jane describes:—
Wuthering Heights.
His cheeks were sallow and half-covered with black whiskers, the brows were lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. His upright carry suggested his having been in the army [M. Héger had fought as a soldier] ... His countenance ... looked intelligent. A half-civilized ferocity lurked in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, and his manner was even dignified, though too stern for grace.
In view of the general evidence that Heathcliffe, like Rochester, was drawn by Charlotte Brontë from M. Héger, her Brussels friend the professor, it is not surprising that Heathcliffe's was "a deep voice and foreign in sound." Her reference in Wuthering Heights to his Spanish extraction reminds us of M. Paul Emanuel's "jetty hair and Spanish face" in Villette, and of course it is well known M. Paul Emanuel was drawn by Currer Bell from M. Héger.
CHAPTER XI.
CATHERINE AND HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AS JANE AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE."
We have already seen Catherine in Wuthering Heights represented Charlotte Brontë as intimately portrayed by herself in the work, and that Heathcliffe was drawn by her from the original of the Rochester of Jane Eyre. So faithfully did Charlotte Brontë tell again in Jane Eyre the history of her life in relation to her family and M. Héger, that she gives the main lines of her biography in both works. I will show them side by side.
For the literal parallels when not given in this chapter see the index. My amazing discovery on the return of the runaway Heathcliffe to Catherine and the return of the runaway Jane to Rochester I give literally herewith.
| Wuthering Heights. | Jane Eyre. |
| Opening scene: A rainy day in Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's) childhood. She is treated unkindly by the rest of the household. It is impossible to go out on account of the rain. She had been commanded to keep aloof from the family group. This group included in particular, little Catherine tells us with bitter feeling, Hindley Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë), who luxuriated in the warmth of the fire with other members of the family. | Opening scene: A rainy day in Jane's (Charlotte Brontë's) childhood. She is treated unkindly by the rest of the household. It is impossible to go out on account of the rain. She had been commanded to keep aloof from the family group. This group included in particular, little Jane tells us with bitter feeling, John Reed (Branwell Brontë), who luxuriated in the warmth of the fire with other members of the family. |
| Nevertheless, though banished, Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) makes herself snug in a recess behind a curtain, and believes herself secure, when Hindley Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë), coming up from his paradise on the hearth, makes her come out of the recess precipitantly, after she has hurled the book she was reading. Little Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) sees a tyrant in Hindley Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë). He tells her that he is the master of the house. | Nevertheless, though banished herself, Jane (Charlotte Brontë) makes herself snug in a recess behind a curtain, and believes herself secure, when John Reed (Branwell Brontë), coming up from his paradise on the hearth, makes her come out of the recess precipitantly. He hurls the book she was reading. Little Jane (Charlotte Brontë) sees a tyrant in John Reed (Branwell Brontë). He tells her that he is the master of the house, or soon will be. |
| Later, Catherine complains to herself of her brother Hindley's (Branwell's) tyrannies. He has made her cry and her head ached, she says, as a result of his behaviour. | Later, Jane complains to herself of John Reed's (Branwell's) tyrannies. He has made her cry and her head ached, she says, as a result of his behaviour. |
| Little Catherine (Charlotte Brontë), although she was held to be passionate, and was treated harshly and almost as an outsider by the rest of the household, finds a kind, but apparently unsympathetic, friend in a woman-servant, Nelly Dean, who has a remarkable gift of narrative, like Tabitha Aykroyd, whom Charlotte Brontë loved, and who came to the Haworth parsonage when Charlotte was about nine years of age. But even Nelly Dean (Tabitha Aykroyd) sometimes tasked and scolded Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) unreasonably, and mistrusted her. | Little Jane (Charlotte Brontë), although she was held to be passionate, and was treated harshly and almost an outsider by the rest of the household, finds a kind, but apparently unsympathetic, friend in a woman-servant, Bessie, who has a remarkable gift of narrative, like Tabitha Aykroyd, whom Charlotte Brontë loved, and who came to the Haworth parsonage when Charlotte was about nine years of age. But even Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd) sometimes tasked and scolded Jane (Charlotte Brontë) unreasonably, and mistrusted her. |
| She even believes that Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) is an actor and feigns in regard to certain fits of frenzy. | She even believes that Jane (Charlotte) is an actor and feigns in regard to certain fits of frenzy. |
| On the occasion of one of these bouts of frenzy, Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) is in a room, the door of which has been locked. | On the occasion of one of these bouts of frenzy, Jane (Charlotte Brontë) is in a room, the door of which has been locked. |
| In a paroxysm of alarm, Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) summons Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Aykroyd) frantically, and with a piercing scream. The latter enters annoyed, and quite unsympathetic. | In a paroxysm of alarm, Jane (Charlotte Brontë) summons Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd) frantically, and with a piercing scream. The latter enters annoyed, and quite unsympathetic. |
| It is suggested Catherine was only acting, and Catherine overhears this. She had desired Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Aykroyd) to bring her a basin of gruel. | It is suggested Jane was only acting, and Jane overhears this. She finds Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd) at the foot of her bed with a basin in her hand. |
| Catherine (Charlotte) relates her fears of the locked room: How she thought it haunted; she showed fear of the mirror, and describes excitedly to Mrs. Dean (Tabitha) her terrifying sensations previous to her losing consciousness, and how she supposed she must immediately have had a species of fit. | Jane (Charlotte) relates her fears of the locked room: How she thought it haunted; she showed fear of the mirror, and describes excitedly to Bessie (Tabitha) her terrifying sensations previous to her losing consciousness. She supposed she must immediately have had a species of fit. |
| Mrs. Dean (Tabitha) suggests sleep to Catherine (Charlotte Brontë). | Bessie (Tabitha) suggests sleep to Jane (Charlotte Brontë). |
| Mrs. Dean (Tabitha) believes that to see the apparition of a child is a sign of calamity having befallen some one near akin. One day Mrs. Dean sees a child-apparition, and fears it may be a sign of calamity to Catherine's (Charlotte's) brother, Hindley Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë). He is really in disgrace. | Bessie (Tabitha) believes that the apparition of a child is a sign of calamity having befallen some one near akin. Jane dreams of a child-apparition, and fears it may be a sign of calamity, and the day following Bessie's husband brings word of the disgrace of John Reed (Branwell Brontë, Charlotte's brother). |
| Catherine falls in love with a morose, "sallow-cheeked" individual with deep eyes, that have a singular expression, which makes the narrator associate "hell's light" with them. He has a handsome, erect carry, but is rather negligent in his apparel. His speech is abrupt. (His name is Heathcliffe.) | Jane falls in love with a morose, "olive-cheeked" individual with deep eyes, that have a singular expression, which makes the narrator associate "hell's light" with them. He has a handsome, erect carry, but is rather negligent in his apparel. His speech is abrupt. (His name is Rochester.) |
| But Catherine loved him, and he loved Catherine. Indeed, Catherine likens themselves to a cloven tree by saying that whosoever would come between them to divide them would meet the fate of Mïlo, who, of course, endeavoured to drive asunder a cloven tree held firmly at its base, and was himself trapped by it for his pains. Thus she believes in the "twin-soul" or the elective affinities, and says:— | But Jane loved him, and he loved Jane. Indeed, Jane likens themselves to a cloven tree, which is one at the root, but divided by storm. Thus she believes in the "twin-soul" or the elective affinities, and says of Rochester:— |
| "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliffe now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that not because he's handsome, ... but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."[53] | "I feel akin to him.... I have something in my brain and heart that assimilates me mentally to him.... I know I must conceal my sentiments.... Yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him."[53] |
| However, Heathcliffe and Catherine part, Heathcliffe running away unexpectedly. (Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters.) | However, Rochester and Jane part, Jane running away unexpectedly. |
| Catherine dreams she is in heaven, but broke her heart to come to earth again, upon which the angels flung her out near Heathcliffe's abode, where she awoke sobbing for joy: Catherine preferred her lover to heaven.[54] | Jane finds refuge with the Rivers family (the Brontë family at Haworth). She is tempted to take to a religious life:—"Angels beckoned, and Heaven rolled together like a scroll," but she heard Rochester's voice calling, though he was miles away. Jane preferred her lover to heaven.[54] |
| The two parted lovers, however, meet again, and by Charlotte Brontë's Method I., (interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed), we arrive at another of my sensational and important Brontë discoveries. | The two parted lovers, however, meet again, and by Charlotte Brontë's Method I., (interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed), we arrive at another of my sensational and important Brontë discoveries. |
| The Return of the Runaway Lover Heathcliffe to Catherine.[55] | The Return of the Runaway Lover Jane to Rochester.[55] |
| Wuthering Heights. | Jane Eyre. |
| Chapter X. | Chapter XXXVII. |
| On [an] ... evening ... I
was coming from the garden....
It had got dusk, ... the moon
causing ... shadows to lurk in
the corners of ... portions of
the building. I set my burden
on the house steps by the ...
door and lingered to rest ...
my back to the entrance, when
I heard a voice behind me
say:— "... Is that you?" It was a deep voice, and foreign in sound.... Something stirred in the porch; and moving nearer I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself.... A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half-covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. |
... I came, just ere dark ... the darkness ... of dusk gathered.... I beheld the house—scarce by this dim light distinguishable.... Entering a portal fastened by a latch, ... I stood.... The windows were latticed, ... the front door was narrow; ... one step led up to it.... I heard a movement—that narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange. [Charlotte Brontë's Wuthering Heights version of the returned runaway lover, is also staged at "the grange."] It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man, ... he stretched forth his hand.... Dusk as it was I had recognized him—it was my master ... Rochester. I stayed my step, almost my breath.... His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair was still raven-black: nor were his features altered or sunk.... But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding—that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe.... He closed the door. I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me.... She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried "Is it really you, Miss, come at this late hour...?" I answered by taking her hand. |
| "What!" I cried, uncertain
whether to regard him as a
worldly visitor, and raised my
hands in amazement. "What!
you come back? Is it really
you? Is it?" "Yes; Heathcliffe," he replied ... "where is she?... Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with her—your mistress [Catherine]. Go, and say some person ... desires to see her." "... And you are Heathcliffe. But altered!" ... I could not persuade myself to proceed. At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if ... [Catherine] would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door. [She] sat ... by a window whose lattice lay back. "What does he want?" asked Catherine. "I did not question him," I answered. ... Mr. Edgar inquired ... who it was? "Some one mistress does not expect," I replied. "That Heathcliffe.... Hush! you must not call him ... names.... She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heart-broken when he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her." "Oh, ... Heathcliffe's come back—he is," panted Catherine. "... I'll ... secure my guest. I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real!" "... Catherine, try to be glad without being absurd! The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant." I ... found Heathcliffe ... and ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress. ... Now, I was amazed [by] the transformation of Heathcliffe;... A half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, quite divested of roughness, though too stern for grace.... He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him, as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his to her often; a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back each time; ... the undisguised delight he drank from hers.... Catherine ... rose and seized Heathcliffe's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself. "I shall think it a dream to-morrow!" she cried. "I shall not be able to believe that I have seen and touched, and spoken to you once more.... Cruel Heathcliffe! You don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!" "... I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice, and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!" "... The event of this evening," said Catherine, "has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence—oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery.... I can afford to suffer anything hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I'd not only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it.... I'm an angel!" (Later on in Wuthering Heights Charlotte Brontë, temporarily neglecting her use of Method I., interchange of the sexes, in this connection, makes Heathcliffe say to Catherine:— "Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy?... You loved me, then what right had you to leave me?... Because misery and degradation and death and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you of your own will did it."). |
"... Tell your master ... a
person wishes to speak to him." When she returned, I inquired what he had said. "You are to send in your name and business," she replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass of water, and place it on a tray, together with candles. "Is that what he rang for?" I asked. "Yes; he always has candles brought in at dusk...." "Give the tray to me, I will carry it in." ... Mary opened the door for me.... Mr. Rochester turned mechanically. "This is you, Mary, is it not?" "Mary is in the kitchen," I answered. "Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?" "... I came only this evening," I answered. "Great God!—what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?... Oh! I cannot see.... Whatever—whoever you are—be perceptible to my touch or I cannot live!" I arrested his hand and prisoned it in both mine. "Is that Jane?" "... This is her voice," I added.... "My dear master, ... I am Jane Eyre:... I am come back to you." "In truth?—in the flesh? My living Jane?" "You touch me, sir—you hold me. I am not vacant like air, am I?" "... But I cannot be so blest after all my misery. It is a dream: such dreams I have had.... But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned." ... I began ... to withdraw myself from his arms—but he eagerly snatched me closer:— "No, you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you; ... my very soul demands you.... Who can tell what a dark, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? ... feeling but a ceaseless sorrow, and at times a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes; for her restoration I longed.... Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow ... I shall find her no more.... Cruel, cruel deserter! O Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled and left Thornfield?" "Jane! ... my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now.... I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree I defied it.... Of late, Jane, ... I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconciliation to my Maker.... Now I thank God." |
The above parallel descriptions, it will be found, agree practically word for word. I will now give the substance side by side, and let the reader keep in mind Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters:—
The absolute dependence of Charlotte Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Villette upon her own inner life in relation to M. Héger is proved by the evidence in the chapter on "The Rivers Family," in the chapters on "Eugène Sue and Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Life," and in those entitled "The Recoil."
CHAPTER XII.
EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE.
I.
MDLLE. LAGRANGE AND HER MANUSCRIPT "CATHERINE BELL THE ORPHAN."
When Mrs. Gaskell published her Brontë biography it was discovered that while she had been enabled by aid of the mass of commonplace Brontë correspondence to present an interesting picture of the domestic conditions at the Haworth parsonage, she had yet been unable to throw any light upon that episode in Charlotte Brontë's life which, it had been suspected, was responsible for the extraordinary love passages in the Brontë works and Miss Brontë's insistence in choosing the hero of each of her books from the same model.
It is therefore most miraculous and sensational that after having found Montagu's Gleanings in Craven was the key to Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, I should further come to discover, what the world had thought would never be found: external evidence throwing light upon Miss Brontë's real relations with the Hégers at Brussels, to whose pensionnat she went in the 'forties. This discovery was the subject of my article "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil" Mr. W. L. Courtney commissioned me to write in the Fortnightly Review. Therein I showed Eugène Sue had presented the whole history of M. Héger's passion for Charlotte Brontë, and Madame Héger's jealousy, in a work entitled Miss Mary ou l'Institutrice, published in 1850-51—seven years before the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's Life, and before the publication of either The Professor or Villette; and we saw that M. Héger knew all Miss Brontë's literary secrets in 1850.
Skilfully enough Eugène Sue in this story—the first version of which was issued serially in September 1850, from The Weekly Times Office, London, whence were published many of M. Sue's serials;[56] the second, an abridged and altered version for French readers, published in Paris in March 1851—gave two phases of Charlotte Brontë, something after the method we see Miss Brontë herself employed in Jane Eyre, wherein she gave two phases of Tabitha Aykroyd, one in the beginning as Bessie, another later on as Hannah of the Rivers family.[57]
Indeed it will be found that in this work Eugène Sue also imitated Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed from life.
The two phases of Miss Brontë in this romance are Miss Mary Lawson, an Irish governess at the de Morville establishment; and Mademoiselle Lagrange, a former governess at the same house. The Mademoiselle Lagrange is, however, always referred to in the abstract, and serves to illustrate, it appears, Miss Brontë before her first departure from and return to Brussels, as well as after, for she was twice at the Hégers. And it may be observed that Charlotte Brontë was called "Mademoiselle Charlotte" at the Héger pension when she was governess there in 1843. Certainly the choice of Lagrange for Miss Brontë was pertinent: la grange is French for "the barn," and may have been suggested by the Eyre of Jane Eyre, which to a French ear would recall aire—a barn floor. Mdlle. Lagrange who had left the de Morville (Anglicè, Morton. As we have seen, Morton of Jane Eyre was Haworth to Charlotte Brontë) establishment on account of the jealousy of Madame de Morville, whom I identify as Madame Héger, is a plain-featured literary aspirant, and she writes a manuscript entitled not exactly Currer Bell, but "Kitty Bell, the Orphan."
This manuscript has been sent by the author for an opinion of its merits to M. de Morville, who reads it aloud to his family. It is a parody, as it were, of Jane Eyre, with an imitation of Charlotte Brontë's methods of introducing private biographical facts. For instance, in presenting the Lowood school incidents it calls the school "the Kendall Institute," named after "a Mr. Kendall, its founder." Evidently the writer had heard, as only few indeed had at this early day, that the Lowood school of Jane Eyre was afterwards removed to Casterton in the Union of Kendal, or had heard that in a wise it was connected with a place of that name.
Other extraordinary facts with which he shows acquaintance are, that Charlotte Brontë had a sister Elizabeth at this school; that Helen Burns was her sister; that there was a West Indian girl at the school; that Charlotte Brontë was born on or about the 21st of April; that she might be called Kitty (Currer) Bell at home, but she must be called Catherine (Catherine Earnshaw); that Miss Brontë was the governess-daughter of an Irishman; that the original of John Reed was her brother and was no hero, and had shown strange signs of insanity during the last year or two, as it is now known he had at the time; that a female relative had provided Miss Brontë the money for the pensionnat; that skin disorders as well as the typhus fever were prevalent at the Clergy Daughters' School (it is in a private letter that Miss Brontë referred to scrofula at this school); that the original of Mr. Rochester was a foreigner and a resident abroad, an ex-soldier, and married to a lady who was not pretty, albeit "la vivacité, l'agrément de sa physionomie expressive, suppléaient à la beauté qui lui manquait"; that Charlotte Brontë had had in her possession since her childhood an old copy in English of The Imitation of Christ; that Miss Brontë was called a bas bleu at the pensionnat; that to form an opinion of her character by Madame Héger's estimate of her disposition would be completely erroneous; that M. Héger was accustomed to read feuilletons aloud; that religious differences existed between her and others at the establishment where Charlotte Brontë was; that Catherine's (Catherine Earnshaw's) rival was Isabella (Heathcliffe's wife—Madame Héger of the Rue d'Isabelle); that Miss Brontë travelled alone to Brussels and was accosted by deux jeunes gens—compare the opening chapters of Miss Mary with Lucy Snowe's arrival at Villette, evidently in some wise founded on fact, as to these two young men. See also The Professor, Chapter VII.
But to return to "Mdlle. Lagrange's Manuscript," the pseudo Jane Eyre, which of course at once identifies its author, Mdlle. Lagrange, as Charlotte Brontë, I find therein the whole Lowood school incidents—the typhus fever, the hair-cutting incident, the death of the consumptive Helen Burns, etc., amplified with biographical additions. For instance, take the hair-cutting incident of Jane Eyre as represented in "Lagrange's Manuscript"—
The master called out:—
"Elizabeth——"
... Meanwhile all the Elizabeths in the school must have felt the claws of the tiger in their necks, for who could tell which of them it was?...
"Superintendent of the Kendall Institute! you are aware, madam, one of the rules of this establishment enjoins you to cut short the hair of every new girl.... And yet what do I see? Six girls with long hair...."
The last of these had not been a week at the institution. She was a girl of fourteen, very dark, ... with a fine tinge of the Creole in her face. How well I thought did Isabella Hutchinson, with her dark, West Indian head, look by the side of the fair Yorkshire girl, Sophia Leigh, whose pale, straw-coloured locks, looked paler still by the side of that dark heap of hair, blacker than a raven's wing...[!]
We have seen in the chapter on "The Rivers or Brontë Family in Jane Eyre" that Charlotte Brontë portrayed in the character Julia Severn, who is first mentioned in connection with the hair-cutting incident, her sister Elizabeth, and it is most significant that M. Sue made play upon the name Elizabeth in the connection. In regard to the mention of a West Indian girl at the Lowood school and her being coupled with a fair-haired Yorkshire girl, it is important to note that no reference is made in Jane Eyre to a West Indian girl at this school. It is indeed astonishing how much M. Sue knew of Charlotte Brontë's private life. Here we find him telling the world in 1850 of a West Indian girl being with Charlotte Brontë at the Clergy Daughters' School, and not till seven years later did Mrs. Gaskell learn of the Rev. Patrick Brontë—Charlotte Brontë was then dead—that a girl from the West Indies had been Charlotte's friend at this school. Her name, he thought, was Mellany Hane, so far as he could remember to pronounce it. Mysteriously enough, the words "West Indies" or "West Indian" in this connection have been deleted from the later editions of Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. See the Second Edition.
"Lagrange's Manuscript" is of considerable length and interest, and can be drawn upon in future editions of The Key to the Brontë Works. Frequently it follows in parallel to Jane Eyre, but as parody interspersed with biographical details which must have been intended chiefly for Charlotte Brontë herself, as scarcely any one else could at that day have understood the pertinence of the references.[58] Take a Helen Burns incident whereby M. Sue shows he is aware she was a Brontë sister, older than Charlotte—Maria Brontë who died of consumption:—
But the inexorable hand ... was upon Agnes Jones [Helen Burns]. Day by day I saw her pretty cheeks growing thinner and thinner, her eyes sinking still more deeply into her head, her little mouth becoming more blue and ashy, her long, thin fingers more transparent. Her voice, at all times so meek and low, dwindled away to that thin and tiny sound to which we listen as to something absent—already gone—something that comes from above or below us—that is not living amongst us—not breathing as we breathe—a retreating echo, rather than a living voice—a sigh, and not a sound.... It was not much I had learned from Agnes [Helen] since I had been at the institution; but never till then had I known her spirit so genial, her heart so lovingly persuasive; the beneficent lessons of those days, burning like candles within me, have since guided me well through life: she spoke to me like a prophet, and I listened to her like a believer. Oh, I could have lived for ever in that chamber, and Agnes [Helen] might have been to me the world! How often, as our cheeks lay against each other have I wished that I, too, had been ill, so that I also might have died, as she was dying, in my innocence!... One evening, ... just at that pleasant hour of twilight when two of God's wonders—night and day—cross each other like ships on the sea, Agnes [Helen] said:—'Life has its holiness as well as death, Catherine [Jane]; and you may live in the world as purely and justly as those who die in the cradle.'
"The world is full of temptation?"
"So it is, but there lies the merit, my dear; wrestle with temptation and do what is right, ... you must not allow my death to afflict you much, since I rejoice at it.... If you think of me, think of me living, not dead. Think of your playfellow in the garden; think of your elder sister who lived with you for six years."
Maria Brontë, Charlotte's eldest sister, and the original of Helen Burns, died when Charlotte was eight or nine. It is sensational indeed, that M. Sue thus identified Helen Burns seven years before the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. The death of this character in "Lagrange's Manuscript" is in perfect agreement with that of Helen Burns. I will place the two side by side:—